In the aftermath of the Battle of Fächnor, after the last Gülvini were dragged screaming from their hiding places and summarily dispatched, after the gestating eggs had been burned, and after the last tunnel had been searched, the cleanup began. The Khundari were as fierce in their determination to cleanse the old mine colony of every vestige of the hated occupiers as they had been in their desire to retake it in the first place. But while his soldiers took to their tasks with gusto, Prince Rhoghûn and his principle advisors attended to the more somber job of laying to rest the bones of the murdered children of the last Governor of Fächnor and their eternally loyal guardian Zarak Firefist. Vulk was consulted, having actually interacted with the the revenant spirt of the long dead mage, but it was the Dürkonian High Priest of Gheas who performed the rites, as was only proper.

As a gray, rainy day dawned above, the children were properly interred in the family crypt, and Zarak’s bones were given a place of honor between them. Amongst the mourners was Gorath Graymantle, a great-grandnephew of the old Governor and a loyal troop commander of the Prince’s army. When the rites were done for the moment (the clerics would be busy for days sorting through and properly laying to rest the scattered Khundari bones throughout the mines and crypts), the Prince announced that Commander Graymantle would be taking over as the new Governor of Fächnor, tasked with reopening the mines and re-peopling the colony. Many families who had ancestors who had died here had expressed a desire to return in the coming months.

Once the ceremonies were concluded Mariala and Vulk retired to the large tent the Khundari had provided for the Hand’s use. It lay outside the colony, but within the mostly intact palisade the gül-Bogabai had built, which suited Mariala just fine – she had no desire to spend a minute more in the charnel-house that had been the Gülvini colony. While Vulk began to sort through and catalog the contents of the magic chest that had once belonged to the mage Zarak, she began to sort through the papers she’d taken from “King” Gunük’s room as well as the few scraps she’d found in the chamber of the mysterious “priestess” Zeliona. What began as a perfunctory examination quickly turned into a compelling look into the mind of the dead Gülvini.

After more than an hour of intense reading, several times waving Vulk to silence when he tried to tell her what he’d found, Mariala sat back with a deep sigh and a thoughtful look. After a moment, noticing her friend’s sardonic (but very silent) look, she shook her head and motioned to the sheaf of papers. “It’s amazing, Vulk! These pages are the personal journal of Gunük, begun when he seized control of his colony. I’m stunned… and don’t quite know what to think…

“It’s rare enough to find a Gül who can read, but finding one who can write… especially like this… it’s almost unique!”

“I should think so,” Vulk replied with a laugh. “But what do you mean ‘write like this?’ It can’t possibly be any good –”

“That’s what I thought myself, when I began to read. But… his style is crude, to be sure, but there’s a heartflet passion that comes through in his words – there’s a true desire to see his people secure and safe from their enemies, and a surprisngly sophisticated meditation on the possibilities of his species and their place in this world. He also expresses doubts about the long-term utility of the “Death God” that this Zeliona woman brought to his people… but recognized its usefulness in creating a unity of purpose in them. Here, read for yourself… I have to think about this. And there’s some interesting factual information in there, too.”

Vulk took the papers with a dubious look, but within a few minutes he was as engrossed as his friend had been. The ideas expressed by the young gül ruler were as thoughtfully… human… as anything he’d read in his philosophy classes, if more crudely formed. When he had finished he looked as thoughtful and nonplused as Mariala.

“You’re right,” he said after a moment. “This is amazing; and I think we need to preserve these pages. I know several people in the Church who I think should read them…”

“And I’m sure Master Vetaris would be interested,” Mariala agreed. “We’re so conditioned to think of the Gül as more beast than human… but if even one of them can think, and write, like this…”

“Well, let’s not get carried away, Mariala. This is one gül, and Kasira knows the ones we generally encounter seem to more than live up to their reputation! And this Gunük certainly didn’t seem like a poet-king when he was almost bashing in Toran’s head.”

“True… but really Vulk, who among us is only one thing, all the time?”

To that the cleric had no answer, and the conversation moved into more practical channels.

“You noticed that bit where he was talking about the night he killed his predecessor?” Mariala asked, glancing through the pages to find the passage. “He mentions that one of the first things this “priestess” did when they got into the King’s Chamber was to got through the chest and remove three ‘objects of interest,’ claiming them as her god’s price for “taking in” Gunük’s people.”

“Yes, and I wonder if our young scholar noticed the double entendre in that statement?” Vulk asked, laughing. “Taken in indeed. It did seem like he was inclined to argue with her… but her claim that the items were of no use to him seemed to lull him… and I think, as she made no move to claim the Horn of Kergis, which he knew he needed and could use, he was content to let her have her way.

“Did you find anything interesting in those scraps we gathered up in this Zeliona woman’s chamber? Anything to hint at what those “objects of interest’ were?

“Not really,” Mariala sighed, riffling through the bits of parchment again. “About all I could gather was that she had an obvious desire to collect arcane artifacts. My sense is that she was doing this for someone else, a woman probably, though I can’t prove it. I found only one solid bit of information, a name.” She held up a torn scrap and Vulk read “Avira will be well pleased that the rebel found nothing in Vabasht,” written in a tight, neat hand.

“Well that’s frustratingly obscure,” he groused. “Avira is hardly an uncommon name… and who is this rebel that’s mentioned and what does Vabasht have to do with anything?

“Well, I wonder if Keegar, the Hovgavui King of Zabel might be the “rebel?” Mariana pondered. “Gunük writes extensively that this Keegar seeks to dominate all the gül of the southern Sarajis Mountains. He sought tribute not just from Fächnor but from the gül-Gramlini of nearby Vabasht.

“Zeliona suggested an alliance with the Gramlini, and other tribes, to turn the tables on Zabel… if someone really is trying to unify the gülvini… I wonder if Zeliona tried this ‘Death God’ scam on Keegar first, but he turned on her?”

“A possibility, to be sure,” Vulk agreed, scanning through the papers again himself. “Yes, here it is… Fächnor’s initial overtures to Vabasht were rebuffed but then, about month ago, Vabasht lost several hundred gül to a swarm… in the aftermath Zabfel attacked and looted the smaller colony. But after looting it, they didn’t actually enslave the Gramlini – Keegar just declared it tribuary to Zabel, leaving no occupying force, just a promise to return for tribute on the alternating dark of each Lesser Moon.”

“Which is coming up soon,” Mariala noted. “And I’m particularly intrigued by this rumor that Keegar used an Umantari, wielding fire magics, to subdue the Gramlini… if what we surmise is true, is there dissension in the ranks of our enemies, whoever they may be?”

“The Vortex, surely,” Vulk replied, surprised. “Who else?”

“Almost anybody, really,”Mariala laughed. ” I’m afraid we may be getting to the point where we see the Vortex behind every bush and under every bed. But as Master Vetaris pointed out, there are other powers at work in the world, other plots, other agendas. Maybe this is one of them?”

“Possibly, possibly,” Vulk reluctantly agreed. ‘But then there’s the matter of the ‘Death God’ alter this so-called priestess installed in Fächnor. I spent some time examining it earlier, and it’s clearly of very skilled craftsmanship, not made by any gül… it’s surprisingly sophisticated, actually, and incorporates bits of several deities in ways both obvious and subtle. I detected hints of Korön, Zelist, Naventhül and, rather surprisingly, Cael.”

Mariana raised her own eyebrows at that.

“And I can’t figure out how the damn woman got it into the colony. Even Gunük’s journal doesn’t help – he just says it ‘appeared miraculously overday’ shortly after his coup d’tat.”

“Well, I hear the Prince has ordered it destroyed, so maybe we’ll learn something when the Khundari break it up,” Mariala offered, shrugging. “And what did you find in our new magic chest? Which is going to be wonderfully useful, I suspect, once we get it home!”

“Yes, it’s very powerful, the ultimate in security… at least for anything that will fit in a space 1 meter long, 40 cm wide and 50 cm deep.” Vulk reached over to the box of dark red wood and polished steel, lifting off a sheet of parchment. “Let’s see… there were several leather bags of silver, totaling 1,217 coins, of various northern realms; a large bag of 116 gold coins, oddly enough mostly Valtiran Rose Nobles; a small casket with 6 rubies which I’m guessing are worth over 2500 sp; and a second casket containing four fire opals and a single spectacular sapphire. That last is probably worth 1,000-1,500 sp alone! The opals are fine, but I doubt they’re worth more than a few hundred.

“And even with all that, there was still plenty of space for other items – specifically, the missing three ‘objects of interest’ we were just discussing. And, of course, the Horn.”

“And which still worry me,” Mariala sighed. “If they were anything like as powerful as the Horn, I hate to think what our enemies will do with them…”

♦ ♦ ♦

The Hand spent next day in various activities around the recovered Khundari colony... Jeb and Therok pitched in with the dirty work of cleaning out the filth of five centuries, Toran and Korwin aided the Prince and his advisors in seeking lost treasures and artifacts (with little success), Devrik and Erol went out on patrols with the Khundari scouts, and Mariala and Vulk continued to study the captured papers, a few more of which had been found during the previous day. Grover and Cherdon frolicked in and above the forests, although not together.

Over a late supper that night Mariala found herself seated next to Gorath Graymantle, the new Governor of the recovered colony, and in the course of their conversation she mentioned the cryptic note she’d found referring to a rebel who “found nothing at Vabasht.” The Governor, a youngish man not over 70 and rather outgoing for a Khundari, looked surprised.

“Well, my lady, I may be able to shed some light one that,” he said, surprising her in turn. “The legends and lore of these lands are a special interest of mine, you see… something I’ll have to give up I suppose, with my new responsibilities… but never mind, never mind. I’m thinking of the stories surrounding the founding of the Vabasht colony… it is said that the gül-Nomai who discovered the natural cave complex were deserters from the armies of the Necromancer…and the cursed wizard apparently took a very keen interest in these particular deserters – something he seldom did, being content to have his minions wreck havoc in any way they might – which was noted at the time, and remembered… he sent one of his lieutenants, a monstrous being called Vordulon the Wolf, to “seek the thieves and return their prize,” as a surviving fragment from the journal of one of the many scribes Pürshok Vindu kept around himself, to chronicle his glory… that same scribe later reports that “…the Wolf found the traitors on the shoulder of Muntursk’s Mount…” and destroyed them all… but apparently failed of his second task… “for the prize was secreted deep in the land, far beyond the grasp of the Wolf’s claws…” well, as you can imagine, my lady, this has led to centuries of speculation… what was this “prize” that the Necromancer sought so urgently? Where was it hidden? Is it still there to be found? Most scholars I’m aware of agree that it was probably Vabasht that was the site of the Wolf’s massacre… it’s the only gülvini colony on Mount Muntursk, having been reoccupied by a tribe of gül-Gramlini about twenty years after the Battle of Harkathir… the Gramlini have always been the most honorable of Vindus’ creations to my mind, if such words can properly be used about such creatures… most of my fellows would sharply disagree, of course, so we’ll say no more about that… never mind, never mind… well, many men, and a few women, have sought this fanciful treasure over the years, but no one has claimed to have discovered it yet… so, when I hear of someone having “found nothing” at Vabasht, well naturally my mind turns to this old tale… can’t say what the rebel part means, of course… but there you are…”

This blast of information gave Mariala a moments pause as she took it all in and considered its implications. She had several questions for her interlocutor, but had no chance to ask them as loud voices were suddenly  heard outside the dining tent, demanding to see the Prince at once. When they were admitted it turned out to be the scouting party that Devrik and Erol had gone out with that afternoon. Lekorm Darkeye had led the group and he now knelt before his Prince.

“We passed far north, my lord,” he began without preamble, “casting a wide net. Near dusk we came upon a large mass of gül-Hovgavui, 40 of them I estimated, just breaking camp for their night’s march. As they were headed east, and thus no apparent threat to you here, we decided to watch for from afar for a time, to see if we could determine their destination or purpose. But soon after they began, ten of the foulspawn broke off from the main group and began heading south… directly towards us, as it happened.

“There being five of us, and all skilled warriors, I determined that we overmatched these gülvini, and should lay an ambush. My Shadow Warriors and Ser Erol took one side of a narrow glade, Ser Devrik and I the other, and so we took the goblins by surprise. We slew all but one, whom Ser Devrik managed to take alive for questioning. The creature was defiant, but in the end he broke and babbled all he knew… which was little enough… the larger party goes to demand tribute from the hive nest at Vabasht, while the smaller party was being sent to demand the Bogabai of Fächnor swear fealty to Keegar of Zabfel. I took some pleasure, I admit, in telling the creature that Fächnor was again in the hands of it’s rightful lord, and the gül-Bogabai all dead, before I killed it.

“We hurried back to bring this news, my Prince, as I deem it likely that this Keegar creature may take it into his head to attack us here, when his embassy fails to return – perhaps thinking he attacks the late King Gunük, if he has not yet had rumor of our victory.”

Dinner broke up as the Prince and his chief advisors retired to the ruler’s more private tent, while the rest of the Hand gathered around their two returned friends to get more details…

♦ ♦ ♦

The next day the Hand of Fortune departed Fächnor with the Prince’s blessing, to scout out the environs of Vabasht and learn what they could…